SEBamyl GL – The greatest thing about malted barley is the fact that it comes in a nice package that is ready to go, just add water and heat, then fermentable sugar results an hour or so later. It is almost like a microwave dinner, someone else does the work of the malting the barley, while the buyer just sits back and relaxes until the timer goes off and the mash is converted from starch to sugar.

SEBflo TL – Every now and then a little experimentation takes place in the brewery, and a new wheat beer pops up, or a rye IPA is devised. Everything is going great with the formulation, the ingredients are in place, the specialty hops just got in, and the yeast is waiting to be pitched.  Alas the mash tun has gone from a nice sweet barely tea, into a thick goopy mess which is just waiting to get stuck in the lautering. What happened? Where is that nice, sweet, and thin wort that was so loved?

SEBrew Malt P1500– When it comes to feeding the yeast in one’s upcoming beer, usually a choice is made at the mashing stage with respect to how fermentable the beer should be so style purposes. This leads to a cooler or warmer mash within the 140-160 F range, higher for less fermentable, and lower for more fermentable wort. Of course this is all in a perfect world, where the malted barley has enough enzymes in it to work quickly and efficiently enough, not to mention temperature fluctuations and the like.

First of all, an enzyme is a protein. The main forms of proteins are structural, hormones, regulatory and enzymes. Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary defines an enzyme as follows: “Enzymes are complex proteins capable of inducing chemical changes in other substances without being changed themselves.”¹